


Inevitability

by ImberNox



Category: Messiah Project - All Media Types
Genre: Haruki - Freeform, Ichijima Haruumi - Freeform, Kaidou Eiri - Freeform, Mitsumi Haku - Freeform, mentions of - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 02:43:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13180695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImberNox/pseuds/ImberNox
Summary: in which ariga refuses to shoot mamiya once mamiya begins playing his violin (Hagane no Shou)"Mamiya’s form dropped. The violin and bow fell from his hands in a beautiful shattering. The blood began to seep from Mamiya’s wound, staining past the purple of his uniform and onto the ground. His breathing was so, very shallow."





	1. An Alteration

**Author's Note:**

> This has been making me think for quite some time. I genuinely love the way that Mamiya's death was portrayed. It was one of those rare moments in the Messiah Project where the pacing and the acting and, really, everything was executed so, incredibly well. The first time I watched Hagane, I could not tell if it was the flashback with Reiji or Mamiya's death that made me ache the most for Mamiya's character. Both scenes were beautiful and haunting. 
> 
> However, I do believe that Mamiya needed to die, then. Ariga shooting him was truly the kindest thing that anyone could have done to Mamiya (and there's an essay I'm writing that I'll upload later on Mamiya's character and how's he's the "true" messiah). But, since things never went the right way for Mamiya throughout all of his appearances, I wanted to explore the possibility that Ariga would not sympathize with Mamiya : the possibility that he would want legal, rational action rather than accepting Mamiya's state. So, I wrote this.

 

            The sound of the violin music when it entered the air – filled with the noise of their panting and of the waves and the distant sounds of gunshots from fights that they were not partaking in – had Ariga feel the ocean below enter his lungs. It flowed through and up his throat ; it stung his nose and eyes. His chest heaved from the sloshing of the water. His messiah’s frame seemed blurred at the edges. Perhaps it was simply the tulle of Mamiya’s uniform. The deep, warm purple of the uniform shadowed every part of Mamiya. It hid his frame, it hid behind tulle the area where his heart would be nestled underneath, it hid the blood seeping from his bullet wound, and it seemed to deepen the shadows underneath Mamiya’s eyes : haunten him.

            The music that had once saved Ariga now was fraying and breaking. The violin was out of tune ; Mamiya’s playing was haggard and tired and slow. It seemed to break in the air. It broke the air. Every note of the music Ariga recognized so distinctly as the same tune that he had heard repeatedly throughout his acquaintanceship with Mamiya. It was the piece that Mamiya defaulted to. Perhaps he had played it so often and heard it so often that hearing it again was placing him beyond Ariga’s reach and into some world that frightened Ariga : a world beyond caring or feeling, grieving or hating. Mamiya’s expression, though weathered by all that he had been burdened by, seemed suddenly untouched. Ariga felt that, if he reached out, he could wipe the shadows from underneath Mamiya’s eyes. He could move the hair back from his face ever so slightly and restore it to the same style that he had always seen it before. He could grasp Mamiya’s face in his hands and shake him until those eyes flashed with some emotion. Ariga would welcome the outpour of pain and hatred if it meant some emotion.

            The gun on his waist weighed heavily. Before, Ariga never seemed to notice its presence. That gun had been with him for years upon years. What was a tool for the destruction of life had seemed to remind him, always, of how important the preservation of life was : the symbol of what was nearly his suicide. It was the symbol of his revelation following the first time he heard Mamiya’s music. It weighed heavily now, suddenly. The figure hunched before him, playing the music, was asking for its bullet. But Ariga’s hands were shaking.

            He tore his gaze away from Mamiya. He could not stand the sound of that mourning, let alone watch the other play it. Mamiya had saved his life without realizing or trying. Ariga, trying his hardest, could not come near to saving Mamiya’s life. It ate up Ariga until nothing was left inside of him excepting a dark pit that gaped at him from where his stomach and heart and lungs would be. And it sloshed with the water of the waves. It seemed cruel to make that gun a symbol of Mamiya’s death.

            “No,” Ariga refused.

            The music did not stop. Ariga did not know if Mamiya had heard him. The other’s form was swaying slightly : threatening to drop off of the cliff by its own means. Ariga would not grant him his baptism. His soul could stay damned forever, but Ariga thought that it was a damn slight better than never having a chance at anything.

            Ariga took the gun from his belt. The click of it made him flinch. Mamiya did not react. Ariga raised the gun ; he could feel his bottom lip trembling. His hand was shaking and sweating where he held the gun. He breathed in deeply. The shaking stopped.

            “Mamiya,” he said to the other, “I won’t.”

            The sound of the gunshot seemed louder than even the explosion at Mamiya’s concert. It hollowed out Ariga : filling his mouth with ashes. Mamiya’s form dropped. The violin and bow fell from his hands in a beautiful shattering. The blood began to seep from Mamiya’s wound, staining past the purple of his uniform and onto the ground. His breathing was so, very shallow.

            Ariga took a moment to compose himself. He did not want to let himself cry over this. He holstered his gun and walked forwards. He put the violin and the bow away in its case. The wood seemed to scream at him to not touch it, and Ariga winced with every movement of his skin against it. He took the violin case up, and he took up Mamiya’s dying form. Wherever Yuuri and Shirasaki were, they would help him get Mamiya back to Maru.

 


	2. Waking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's kind of amazing how much Mamiya is a Christ figure in the Messiah Project.

 

            Mamiya Seiren was the title given to him. He was his own shrine of all sanctuary ; any reprieve that could be granted to him was carefully folded within him somewhere deep and dark and fragile and soft and gentle and evading. He had lived for so few years, and, yet, he could not imagine a longer time to live. He had no place at the houses of worship : at the shrines decorated such upon the tall hills, surrounded by tall trees. The peace of those areas was tied off from him by thick ropes which held him back by his wrists and by his ankles. Prayers whispered from his lips recycled back into himself.

            In an existence without presence, in the void of the unconscious mind, there seemed no boundaries on thought or time. Perspective danced around like the ever-shifting and apparating specks of dust that danced through beams of sunlight. Those were the thoughts there.

            Somewhere on another plane, he breathed in and out in a steady rhythm that he could not control or fluctuate when buried beneath so much heavy murk. Drowsiness mixed with memory.

            He dreamt that he was suffocating. But, then, he felt the air enter his lungs once more. He felt pain somewhere far away.

            If a man existed somewhere – maybe never – that drank in all of the bitterness of the world – brave – and the people within it – wondrous – and ate never in some agony that stretched for days, that man would be called a saint ; and, the clouds would open for him and accept him into those skies far above. And the world and the ground would be far below his perch. Breathe in : there would be all voice. Breathe out : there would be everything, then, ended.

            If somewhere there was Mamiya Seiren, tied back with rope from privilege and swallowing down the bitterness of the world and its people, Mamiya Seiren would be overlooked for those with all the more fight and all the more energy to run into those places of worship and find their salvation without so much of the hardship that Mamiya Seiren had resigned onto himself. It made his movements foggy. With his hands bound, he could not reach for the neck and the bow of his beloved and lose himself within that buried below and within him : retreat to that shrine and allow all destruction and hellfire to rain down upon it in all of the fury of the war. Ash, debris, screams were devoid from him when inside that shrine, and it was unreachable when bound. Every foggy pain and mindful suffering was of a conscious soul. All restitution was held at arm’s length.

            He swayed there in that existence. His feet could not hold him up, but he was not standing. His eyes were open ; his eyes were closed. He saw nothing, but he still saw. His hands – cold – moved so softly by his sides.

            He went through different possibilities as one shifts through the cards of paint colors when finding the perfect color for one’s bedroom. Mamiya would have preferred something light and pale : something off of which to reflect everything from within himself. Heat spread towards the cold. Darkness spread towards the light. Equilibrium was eventually met. Mamiya admired the pale shades of light : of little darkness. His own equilibrium was so inky that it might as well be labeled black and shelved at the very end of the spectrum. He had accepted it all onto himself.

            In one possibility, odd images of distorted figures played violins. He could not hear their music, but he saw their fingering and had his breath snatched from him. He longed to scream for the smooth wood : the beautifully arched neck. But other hands dealt with the violin. Other hands stole into his shrine and meddled with his restitution. Mamiya could not wrench it back ; he was weak and formless. Not knowing if he would ever get it back, he watched that shrine be locked away from him, feeling all emotion seep from his body and into the void : heat into lack of heat, darkness into light, emotion into apathy. It drained him ; the blood in his body was running cold. His fingertips were numb ; they were always numb after he played violin for long.

The callouses on his fingers from sliding along the strings were peeling off. It was time for them to vanish. Restitution delivered or refused, shrine and shelter had vanished. The callouses were no longer needed. Memory of music was no longer needed. The notes in Mamiya’s head drifted off into silence as the quietude of the void ate up the sounds of his music.

            Another possibility suddenly had him transported to where tulle – beautiful, reddened like wine –was stuffed into his mouth. There, it turned to liquid and seeped out of his mouth. He was choking on it ; it ran a river below him. His wrists were bound to the post : his ankles. The post’s end was submerged in that trickled river as it reddened and reddened : reddened into purple.

            Purple was such a fantastic color. Without purple, Mamiya Seiren had the qualities of it : mystery and devotion and independence. With purple, Mamiya Seiren had the qualities of it : power, ambition, extravagance. But lacking was the pride. Everyone seemed to have pride. Others - whether they were in black or grey or purple – had pride. It filled them and rosied their cheeks and rouged their lips and lengthened their eyelashes. Their eyes shone. Mamiya Seiren had never had that ; he was pale all over, and his eyes had lost their light nearly. He was getting there.

            And Mamiya Seiren, donned in purple or heavied by the reminder of the purple, gave it all up. All chance and pleasure – hope – was taken away from him. Stolen from him by his own choosing. Then, perhaps, it was not stolen. Someone else had taken it, certainly.

            In another possibility, he was lying in bed underneath the dark comforter in a bed with a dark frame. Across the room with a light comforter in a bed with a white frame, Yuuri Kaito laid watching him. In that possibility, everything was taken by Mamiya. His shrine rested with him ; it was leaning against his bedframe within arm’s reach. He could play when he wished. He took in the sight of Yuuri’s eyes watching him with their dark color and the lights within them. The pale cheeks and the deep, rosy lips beckoned to him. He did not move from the bed, nor did Yuuri ; but desire and satisfaction fainted with relief between them. Even when they went to sleep, their visions swam of each other.

            In another possibility, Yuuri Kaito stood above him : his gun staring into Mamiya’s gaze. Gone from Mamiya was any emotion other than wordless rapture : tragic rapture that one experiences right before someone they trust so infinitely snuffs their life. He felt quiet disbelief and mournful acceptance in his chest. In Yuuri’s eyes, he saw all of the pain that Mamiya went through where reality lurked. Yuuri was always so dark. But it spoke to Mamiya of rebirth and restitution. In others, he had seen the same. In others who donned the black uniform, he saw opportunity that was, ultimately, wasted.

            Possibilities stopped in their flickering, and Mamiya was brought back to that foggy existence. He breathed in a gasp. He was falling backwards. And he fell, fell, and fell. He fell as his hands – free from that heinous rope – reached out forwards to grasp onto the air that did not offer purchase.

            Then, he was going upwards. And he was sitting in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room. The sudden lurch from the motion to the stillness made his head swim. Groggy and dizzy, he collapsed back against the pillows. He looked around to his sides. He drew in a shuddering breath.

            With a calm and steady heartbeat that throbbed in Mamiya’s ears, Shirasaki sat in a waiting chair by the bed. Mamiya tried to draw himself up, but his wrists felt weak. He managed to breathe out some groan : exclamation. His lack of motor control frightened him indefinitely. It was if he was bound.

            “Rest,” Shirasaki told him. “You’ll need time.”

            Mamiya’s mouth opened ; he could feel himself tilted back and forth. He was rolling his head against the pillows, but he could not seem to stop. “Where?” he mumbled out. His eyes danced upwards towards the ceiling for something steady on which to focus. The lights hurt his eyes, and he stared into the corner of the room rather.

            “Maru.”

            Mamiya panicked. He could feel his throat closing on itself. Loud, frantic beeping sounded from all around him ; his head throbbed, and his pulse throbbed quicker. It was all overwhelming. He heard the screeching noise of Shirasaki’s chair pushing back as Shirasaki stood rapidly. He heard Shirasaki scream for someone, but the sound of it was too loud. Mamiya faded out of the room and into the existence of nothing without ceremony ; in the lull of that existence, the dizziness was not so unpleasant.

… … …

            Under a better mind, Mamiya awoke from that existence again. Shirasaki continued to sit in the waiting chair. His eyes watched Mamiya carefully and warily. Mamiya regarded him with some emotion akin to amazement. He felt as if he were some viewer removed from the situation. He tried to move his hand up, but it only wobbled before falling heavily back to the mattress.

            “Mamiya,” Shirasaki said his name. “Relax,” the conversation seemed familiar, and it hurt Mamiya’s head. “You’re dizzy.”

            “Yes,” Mamiya managed.

            “You lost both oxygen and blood. You’ll need time to recover.”

            Mamiya lost visual focus. He floated away. “Recover,” he repeated. The word did not sound pleasant to him. He wished to back away from it.

            “Mamiya,” Shirasaki’s voice pulled him back. Mamiya was on a leash. “You should sleep. I’ll be here when you wake again.”

            Mamiya found that it was a perfectly odd thing to say. The other had no reason to be. He managed to not fade back into sleep. He leaned back against the pillows. Occasionally, his eyelids would close, and he would startle with a jolt as he felt his mind slip. It was always the sensation of falling before a sudden jolt. Sometimes, he would mumble Shirasaki’s name clumsily into the air and let the syllables hang there. It sounded nice, but it did not belong to his voice. Yuuri had claimed Shirasaki’s name in the same stroke that he had thrown Mamiya’s to the dust underneath the hot sun through windowpanes.

            Ariga had Mamiya’s name.

            Mamiya’s breathing deepened. He felt himself sit up in bed and sway there as he stared intensely and full of thought, unfocused, at the sheets hiding his lower body. Ariga was still living. He was not here ; he was elsewhere. The person who had stolen his shrine was gone, and the shrine was still left wrenched from Mamiya. He looked up at Shirasaki, whose expression was carefully guarded and held detached worry.

            “Ariga,” Mamiya growled the name. Shirasaki stiffened in his chair, and Mamiya felt all of the hatred from before pool like thick blood in his gut. He was only vaguely aware that drool was slipping from his lips. He was deranged. “Ariga,” he repeated, lower in voice. Everything was thick as syrup : purple syrup like the grape medicine one takes when sick with the cold. Mamiya was sick with the plague.

            There was a sound that distracted Mamiya only slightly. He turned to where the door of the room was with narrowed eyed ; his chest was heaving. Standing there, dumbfounded, was Yuuri Kaito. Yuuri reminded him of smooth violin music and of smiles and soft touch. He hated Yuuri, but he could not bring himself to express such hatred. He sat up more straightly. He lowered his gaze. He wiped his face with his sleeve. He was almost embarrassed.

            Yuuri approached the bed and addressed Shirasaki before Mamiya. “You can leave,” he told Shirasaki in his gentle voice. “I’ll stay with him.”

            Mamiya could see the disagreement in Shirasaki, but Yuuri’s messiah rose from the chair nonetheless and left the room without fuss. Yuuri took the seat then.

            It sounded so odd to Mamiya : that concept of staying.

            “Mamiya,” Yuuri’s voice formed the word. It had been a long time since Mamiya had been addressed by Yuuri. He had almost forgotten the sound of his name in that voice. “Shirasaki told me that you’re not well.”

            Mamiya looked up at him. “Ariga,” he grumbled. It sounded clumsy on his lips. His fingers fumbled to twist into the sheets. “Where is he?”

            “He’s not coming to see you for a bit,” Yuuri told him. “Mamoru and I didn’t think that it would be a good idea.”

            “I want to see him,” Mamiya growled. He did not want to see Ariga ; he had to see Ariga. He had to spit and scream and rage at the other. Ariga had failed him so ultimately : depriving him of even death. Mamiya had more than a few things that he wanted Ariga to hear and feel.

            Yuuri sucked on his bottom lip, and it was distracting. “I’ll relay a message.”

            “Tell him,” Mamiya garbled, “that I hate him.”

            Yuuri stared at him ; the emotion in his eyes was unreadable, though Mamiya had the distinct feeling that it was an unsettled fear : lack of familiarity. “I,” Yuuri faltered, “I likely won’t tell him.”

            Mamiya turned away and glowered at the sheets. His vision was growing dizzy once more.

            “Sleep,” Yuuri asked of him. Mamiya found himself obeying without meaning to. He leaned back and closed his eyes. “You’ll sleep if I’m watching?”

            “I hate you, also,” Mamiya breathed before he fell asleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I heavily carried elements of Christ figure symbolism into this : rope, crosses, sanctuary, blood in the mouth (think transubstantiation), purple representing baptism colors and Lent (giving up sinful pleasure), falling versus ascending, acceptance.


	3. Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And it ends.
> 
> Mamiya/Yuuri was not my intent with this, but it ended up that I could write Yuuri more easily than Ariga ; I found myself writing Yuuri back into this without meaning to. It should /not/ read as romantic. If anything, Yuuri is a Mary figure. Yeah. Yuuri is a Mary figure. (So when Mamoru is mentioned, it's not as a competition. It's more as 'oh, you belong to him' 'i don't belong to him' thing.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, I'm not devoutly religious. I just really love literature and literary analysis. There's even more Christian symbolism in this chapter.

 

            “You nearly killed Mamoru,” Yuuri was speaking. “I watched his body be flung backwards from the blast.” His bottom lip was trembling as his fingers tangled in the sheets of Mamiya’s bed. “He shoved me away from the case first.”

            Mamiya sat in the bed, unsure of how to respond. He knew which bomb of which Yuuri was speaking. He held, in his mind, the moving of images of Shirasaki that he knew. Shirasaki had sat by his bedside, Shirasaki had reached out for Yuuri numerous times, Shirasaki had worked well his temporary messiah, and Shirasaki had lost a partner that he had respected. But Shirasaki was quite not anything to Mamiya, and he remained quiet. Whatever weight that held to Yuuri was lost to him.

            Yuuri was now staring at him, lips twitching. “I’m not sure if I want to kill you or not.”

            “You should.”

            “I should.” Yuuri breathed in. “You won’t be welcome here. You’re going to prison.”

            Mamiya fixated on his hands.

            “Why did you do it?” Yuuri asked. “Tell me.”

            “You’re not my messiah.”

            Yuuri withdrew from him slowly. Mamiya could see his eyes flickering light small flames dancing on candle wicks. Mamiya did not wish to know what Yuuri was thinking. “Would you tell Ariga?”

            That was not what Mamiya had meant or anticipated. He had meant solely to comment on everything running through his mind. Sometimes, he failed to remember that what happened in his head – conversation or vision – was not what others experienced. It had thrown Ariga off, too, when they had their confrontation by the ocean cliffs.

            “No,” Mamiya answered carefully. “I did not mean it like that.”

            “What did you mean, then?”

            “Nothing.”

            “Well,” Yuuri trailed off.

            Mamiya noticed in horrified surprise that Yuuri’s eyes were watery. He could not fathom the other crying, and for what. “Yuuri,” he said softly, reaching out. Yuuri’s eyes caught Mamiya’s hand. Mamiya froze. He realized what that single gesture meant.

            “Even now,” Yuuri smiled bitterly.

            “… Eh?”

            Yuuri was shaking his head. With Yuuri’s head tilted down slightly, his hair covered his face in a beautiful curtain. It had grown thinner and less healthy the longer Yuuri was in SAKURA : losing it sheen and its silk. During the last few weeks, it was nearly frayed like straw in the countryside. But he must have just washed it ; it was back to how it was when he had been assigned Mamiya at the very initial. Mamiya wondered if Shirasaki had forced Yuuri to bathe. Yuuri always found ways to forget about his physical state ; that seemed to be Shirasaki’s responsibility.

            “It’s nothing,” Yuuri dismissed. His hands had retreated to his lap.

            “Please, tell me,” Mamiya asked.

            Yuuri met his eyes. “But you won’t tell me anything.”

            Mamiya was at a loss of how to respond. “I’m sorry, Yuuri.”

            Yuuri was getting frustrated. Mamiya could hear distinctly the huffs of breath that would be silent to any other’s ears. His heartrate was increasing very slightly. It was heightening more than speeding : elevating along with all of Mamiya’s lowering defenses. The longer that Yuuri sat in that chair, the less that Mamiya could think about hatred. It was all returning back to that silence from the initial.

            “Mamiya,” Yuuri spoke, then. “Ariga said-”

            “I don’t want to know what Ariga said.”

            “-that you could have killed him several times but didn’t.” Mamiya looked off into the far end of the room. He did not respond. “Would you have shot Mamoru?”

            Mamiya looked up confusedly. “What?”

            “If Mamoru had been fighting you, would you have shot him without speaking to him?”

            “I wouldn’t know. He was never my messiah. I never knew him.”

            “But you know what he means to me.”

            “That has no significance.”

            “So, did you mean for Mamoru to hold that bomb?”

            Mamiya glanced briefly at Yuuri. “No. Anyone could have held it.”

            “It could have been me.”

            Mamiya flinched. “Yes.”

            “You didn’t want to do it, then.”

            Mamiya scowled. “Yuuri,” he tried to interrupt.

            “Mamiya, explain it to me.” Yuuri leaned forward as if on some precipice : as if he was leaning towards and off of the cliff on which Mamiya had been standing.

            “It’s nothing.”

            “Obviously, it’s enough of something to force you into this.”

            “I wasn’t forced,” Mamiya insisted. “I could have stopped at any chance. I could have hid myself within SAKURA. But I chose to stand by Quantum Cat.”

            Yuuri could not refute that. “I don’t think that the same person who saved my life without reason is the same person to lead Quantum Cat.”

            “They’re not,” Mamiya agreed. “I was lying whilst here.”

            Yuuri stood from his chair. His hands snatched the front of Mamiya’s robes and shook him roughly and shortly. He leaned in towards Mamiya’s face. He went to speak but was cut off.

            “Let him go.”

            Mamiya was looking away from Yuuri and towards the door. He had heard the footsteps down the hall as Yuuri made his scene. Ariga looked unhealthy standing there. His face was sunken and weighted down by exhaustion and stress : physically and mentally. He looked how Mamiya felt without the anger. Yuuri dropped Mamiya immediately. It was all over ; Mamiya would not feel Yuuri again. If he looked now, it would be his last time seeing Yuuri. So, he kept his eyes trained on Ariga.

            “Ariga,” he said. Ariga wavered ; Mamiya heard his heart panic.

            “Mamiya,” Yuuri answered. “I’m sorry.” Mamiya did not grace him with acknowledgement. An apologetic hand touched his shoulder. Yuuri bent down. “I’ll leave.” Again, Mamiya did not respond.

            He averted his eyes downwards when Yuuri crossed the room towards the door and exited.

            “Mamiya,” Ariga, then, spoke.

            “Ariga.”

            Ariga approached warily. His eyes and feet did not trust Mamiya. He sat down in the chair : the third person to take presence there.

            “You didn’t kill me,” Mamiya reminded him.

            “No.”

            “Why not?” Mamiya demanded. Ariga hesitated. “Ariga!” he shouted. It bounced off of the walls of the room.

            “I could not kill my messiah.”

            Mamiya lost everything. He became acutely aware of the tubes running into his body, keeping him alive. “I am your messiah,” he acknowledged. “But you are not mine.”

            “I am.”

            “You could be.”

            Ariga frowned in disbelieving disapproval. It was clear that he did not understand any part of Mamiya's thoughts. “What?”

            “Unplug me.”

            “Unplug?”

            “From everything helping me live and recover. Let me die.”

            “The role of a messiah is to ensure the survival of your messiah.”

            “And if you let me live,” Mamiya stressed, “I will die thirty times a day for every day that I live from now until I’m put out of my misery.” He remembered clearly the silver of Ariga’s gun ; it had stolen his restitution.

            “I cannot.”

            “Please,” Mamiya begged. He thought of Yuuri for a breath. Yuuri would have done it for him. Ariga would do it for him. “Please. There is nothing else.”

            “Why?” Ariga seemed desperate to know. “What happened to you? Was it all your parents? What was it, Mamiya?”

            “It was nothing.” Mamiya rested back against the pillows. He calmed himself. “Please.”

            There was a long pause. Mamiya heard Yuuri pacing outside of the room. No footsteps had approached him ; no breathing was with him. Shirasaki was elsewhere. It was just, with Mamiya, the two people who had any semblance  of connection to him. It made Mamiya think of SAKURA. Finally, Ariga seemed to decide upon some resolution. He reached forward and disconnected the oxygen support that was helping Mamiya breathe.

            Mamiya relaxed there. Breathing seemed easier now ; it was not labored with horrid certainty of living. The physical affect was not so sudden. It would take hours until Mamiya suffocated. He thought he heard a voice from somewhere above ; perhaps, someone was yelling in the streets outside Maru.

            Ariga also reached forward and disconnected the IV drip. He draped it over a metal hangar above Mamiya’s bed. Mamiya wondered what Ariga meant with that action, but he did not question it.

            In soft drops, the IV dripped down onto Mamiya’s forehead. It splashed against his temples and, sometimes, trickled down his nose to pool at the corners of his lips. Unconsciously, he licked his lips, and it entered his mouth.

            Ariga noticed this, but he hesitated to move. Instead, he watched each droplet fall onto Mamiya’s forehead in wordless capture. He seemed to be thinking, but it was the type of thought that was on a distant horizon in one’s mind : far away and unclear. Mamiya watched his face lack reaction and watched his eyes flutter without settling.

            “Do you want me to get Yuuri?”

            Mamiya had not been expecting such an offer. He was not aware that Ariga knew that Yuuri was still outside. He did not answer, yet Ariga rose from his seat and moved towards the door. Perhaps, he did not want to watch the IV drip onto Mamiya and remind him of it all. The door shut with a click ; Ariga meant to have a conversation with Yuuri in the hallway. Mamiya could not tell if it was out of politeness or if both had forgotten Mamiya’s hearing.

            “Ariga,” Yuuri addressed the other.

            “You should come in.”

            “What happened?”

            “We talked.”

            “Yes but about what?”

            “I’ve disconnected him from the oxygen and IV provision. It will be some hours.”

            Yuuri did not speak for some time, and Mamiya could not hear anything from him. It made his heart pound in his chest.

            “I’ll go in.”

            “I’m leaving.”

            Again, there was silence from Yuuri. Footsteps sounded down the hall towards the exiting stairwell.  Ariga could be going to train. He could be going to his room ; he could sit and think and grieve until he lost his head. Mamiya exhaled slowly. Yuuri stood outside in the hall for some, long minutes. Mamiya supposed that he was coming to terms with the knowledge.

            When Yuuri did enter the room, he did so wordlessly. It was only after several seconds had passed that he approached. He sat on the bed rather than in the chair. The closeness startled Mamiya.

            “I almost want to connect everything again,” Yuuri told him wistfully, looking up to the IV drip. “I cannot understand.”

            “Perhaps you shouldn’t.”

            Yuuri smiled humorlessly and nodded. “Perhaps,” it came out as a whisper.

            It occurred, then, to Mamiya that Yuuri handled grief poorly. He remembered, suddenly, everything that had happened in regards with Haruto as he had understood from the showdown between themselves and Serizawa over Tendou’s research. Yuuri had explained it all to him quietly just after their arrival back to Maru. Mamiya wondered whether or not it was wise for Yuuri to be with him : a dying, former messiah.

            “Is that annoying you?” Yuuri asked him, gesturing towards the dripping IV.

            Mamiya licked his lips again, tasting it. “No,” he answered. “It’s a nice reminder.”

            “May I lay beside you?”

            Mamiya startled. “You’re not my messiah,” he said again.

            Yuuri seemed to understand, this time, what Mamiya meant. The ghost of a broken smile was on his lips. “I don’t think Maru could do anything about me lying by a dying cadet.” Mamiya frowned ; maybe, Yuuri did not. “And Mamoru has never been between us.” So, he did.

            Yuuri laid down, then. He remained above the thin sheets while Mamiya relaxed underneath them. It was odd to embrace, but Yuuri did not hesitate in wrapping an arm over Mamiya’s side. Mamiya did not reach out for the other. He just rested his head in the crook of his elbow and let his other hand rest on the bed between them. Yuuri was taller than him but positioned so that Yuuri could lean his head forward onto Mamiya’s chin.

            “Do you want to sleep or talk?”

            “Let’s not talk,” Mamiya decided. “But are you sure that you want to do this? You’ll wake up cradling a corpse.”

            “I’m sure,” Yuuri replied. “But I’ll lie here for a while before I go to sleep, I think.”

            “Then, I will, too.”

            They laid there. Yuuri occasionally choked in his inhales ; Mamiya thought that he was crying. If he was not crying, then he was in a weird state of grieving. The arm draped over his side was a persistent presence. The hand clutched tightly onto the back of his shirt : clenching and unclenching. Mamiya supposed that he understood Yuuri’s lack of will to let go. It was dangerous for Yuuri.

            Eventually, they did fall asleep. Mamiya was not positive when it happened. His breathing was getting slower and shallower. At some point, he simply was back into that formless, floating existence. This time, though, he had no thought within it. It might as well not have existed.

 

 

 

            When Yuuri woke up, he was cradling a corpse. Mamiya’s body was stiff already. Yuuri slowly ran his thumb across Mamiya’s upturned cheekbone. The skin there was cold. He held the corpse tightly to himself. For perhaps an hour or longer, he could not bring himself to even loosen his grip. Letting go choked him. His eyes stung, and he felt a violent urge to claw them out. Mamiya’s eyelashes seemed like a whisper. His calloused fingers rested against white linen. His wrist was drooped and released. He had smothered in his death, but he seemed relieved nonetheless. Yuuri had never known anyone so happy to die. It burned him. However, it seemed that there was a burden lifted. Mamiya’s corpse had sucked all of the dark within Yuuri, within Ariga, with it into death. Left was only the grief eventually to pass.

            Yuuri left the room, but he thought distinctly that he should talk with Ariga about keeping the violin somewhere safe and intact. It should burn and have its ashes thrown into some shadowed place. And, maybe, he would find some way to collect Mamiya’s ashes after they cremated his body : bury them and hide them underneath some stone marker.

            At his last glance into the room, Mamiya was curled underneath the sheets where Yuuri had tucked him : taken down from wherever he had been tortured.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More Christ symbolism! Pretty much the same as last time with more emphasis on crucifying.
> 
> Ariga is John the Baptist. The IV is him granting Mamiya his baptism and "saving" him - more accurately his soul. When Jesus was baptized by John, there was a voice from God in Heaven (I forgot what God said). Oh, also, John the Baptist is beheaded ; so, I added the line about Ariga 'losing his head' in grief. In Hagane, Mamiya's soul was saved through the baptism of the waves (which is why Ariga saying "I'm still your messiah" isn't so ludicrous). So, I wanted to retain that element in this fic.
> 
> (Ariga also had the potential to be Judas. I had the thirty deaths a day in reference to the thirty pieces of silver. If Ariga had not disconnected Mamiya from the IV and the oxygen support, Mamiya would have been betrayed. Also the silver gun betraying him.)


End file.
